Research Chroniclerresearch-chronicler.com/reschro/pdf/v4i1/4111.pdf · 11 Dr. Anjan Kumar Existential Angst in the Novels of Arun Joshi 78 12 Dr Meenu Dudeja Comparison of the Three

www.rersearch-chronicler.com

Research Chronicler – International Multidisciplinary Research journal

Research Chronicler ISSN 2347 – 5021 (Print); 2347 – 503X (Online)

A Peer-Reviewed Refereed and Indexed

Multidisciplinary International Research Journal

Volume IV Issue I: January – 2016

Editor-In-Chief

Prof. K.N. Shelke

Head, Department of English,

Barns College of Arts, Science and Commerce, New Panvel, India

Editorial Board

Dr. A.P. Pandey, Mumbai, India

Dr. Patricia Castelli, Southfield, USA

Dr. S.D. Sargar, Navi Mumbai, India

Christina Alegria, Long Beach, USA

Prin. H.V. Jadhav, Navi Mumbai, India

Dr. Adrianne Santina, McMinnville, USA

Prof. C.V. Borle, Mumbai, India

Dr. Nirbhay Mishra, Mathura, India

Advisory Board

Dr. S.T. Gadade Principal, C.K. Thakur College,

New Panvel, India

Dr. R.M. Badode Professor & Head,

Department of English,

University of Mumbai, India

Dr. G.T. Sangale

Principal, Veer Wajekar College,

Phunde, India

www.rersearch-chronicler.com

Research Chronicler – International Multidisciplinary Research journal

Research Chronicler is peer-reviewed refereed and indexed multidisciplinary

international research journal. It is published bi-monthly in both online and

print form. The Research Chronicler aims to provide a much-needed forum to

the researchers who believe that research can transform the world in positive

manner and make it habitable to all irrespective of their social, national,

cultural, religious or racial background.

With this aim Research Chronicler, Multidisciplinary International Research

Journal (RCMIRJ) welcomes research articles from the areas like Literatures in

English, Hindi and Marathi, literary translations in English from different

languages of the world, arts, education, social sciences, cultural studies, pure

and applied Sciences, and trade and commerce. The space will also be provided

for book reviews, interviews, commentaries, poems and short fiction.

-:Subscription:-

Indian

Individual /

Institution

Foreign

Individual /

Institution

Single Copy 600 $40

Annual 3000 $200

Three Years 8000 $550

-:Contact:-

Prof. K.N. Shelke

Flat No. 01,

Nirman Sagar Coop. Housing Society,

Thana Naka, Panvel, Navi Mumbai. (MS), India. [email protected]

Cell: +91-7588058508

mailto:[email protected]

www.rersearch-chronicler.com Research Chronicler ISSN-2347-503X

International Multidisciplinary Research journal

Volume III Issue VIII: November 2015 (I) Editor-In-Chief: Prof. K.N. Shelke

Research Chronicler A Peer-Reviewed Refereed and Indexed International Multidisciplinary Research Journal

Volume IV Issue I: January – 2016

CONTENTS

Sr. No. Author Title of the Paper Page No.

1 Dr. B. Moses

Linguistics Problems in translating the novel

Helicoptergal Keezhe Irangivittana from

Tamil into English

1

2 G. Christopher

Solitude Leads to Salvation a Critical Study

on William Golding‟s Free Fall

5

3 Ved Prakash Gupta

Study of various Governance Issues in

Government Hospitals (A case of Delhi)

9

4 S. Pari &

Dr. K. Sundararajan

Explicit of Khushwant Singh‟s Life and His

Literary Works.

18

5 Syed Imranul Haque Effectiveness of ICT in EFL Classroom 21

6 Mr. Vijaya Kumar Chavan

&

Dr. R. Udayakumar

UV – VIS Spectral and Morphological

Studies on the Effect of Sildenafil Citrate on

Testis of Ethanol Fed Albino Mice

33

7 Sana Sulaikha

Dalitistan – Towards the Formation of a Dalit

Nation

44

8 Sailesh Sharma

Leadership for Learning beyond

Instructional-Lessons from Indian Private

School Principals

50

9 Dr. Hemangi Bhagwat

&

Sugandha Indulkar

Of Man and Nature in „The Hungry Tide‟

Ecocritical perspectives on Amitav Ghosh‟s

Novel „The Hungry Tide‟

62



Volume III Issue VIII: November 2015 (II) Editor-In-Chief: Prof. K.N. Shelke

10 Dr. Anil Kumar Verma

Effect of Parental Involvement on Academic

Performance of Government Primary School

Children

73

11 Dr. Anjan Kumar Existential Angst in the Novels of Arun Joshi 78

12 Dr Meenu Dudeja Comparison of the Three Novels: Train to

Pakistan, A Bend in the Ganges, Azadi

83

13 Dr. Prativa Panda Sex Inequality and Inheritance Rights of

Women in India

91

14 Prof. Soumyamoy Maitra Rin & Tide: A soapy Saga 102

Poetry

15 Santosh Dharma Rathod How‟s there, Gautama, how‟s there? 107

16 Nishtha Mishra

Last of India‟s “Golden Wings” - An elegy

on the Death of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

109

17 Nishtha Mishra I Have Given Up My Human Rights! 111

18 Nishtha Mishra O Bride! O Bride! 114



Volume IV Issue I: January 2016 (78) Editor-In-Chief: Prof. K.N. Shelke

Existential Angst in the Novels of Arun Joshi

Dr. Anjan Kumar

Principal, G.R. Patil College, Dombivli (E), Dist. Thane, (M.S.) India

Abstract

The novels of Arun Joshi depict modern man as hovering between despair and delusion. The

characters in his novels tend to show the futility and hollowness of civilized society. The novelist

seems to be driving home the idea that the modern civilized society is hollow, pretentious and

snobbish. The hollowness, snobbishness, loneliness, deprivation and disintegration are the

characteristics of what is known as existential angst. It is very essential that we understand the

life in right perspective. Life of human being is very short and once a wrong path is undertaken,

it becomes very difficult to change it. One has to pay the price for the wrongs done in life.

Key Words – anxiety, primitivism, rootlessness, agony

„Angst‟ is a German word meaning fear. It

also denotes a general feeling of anxiety. It

also implies a feeling of anxiety or

apprehension, often without a specific or

identifiable cause. The protagonists in the

novels of Arun Joshi suffer from a feeling of

loneliness, rootlessness, deprivation of love

and disintegration. His novels depict modern

man as hovering between despair and

delusion. The characters in his novels tend

to show the futility and hollowness of

civilized society. They foster a longing to

glorify primitivism. The five novels of Arun

Joshi that shot him into prominence as a

novelist are: The Foreigner (1968), The

Strange Case of Billy Biswas (1971), The

Apprentice (1974), The Last Labyrinth

(1981) and The City and the River (1994).

All the novels record the emotional

turbulences and angst of the protagonists.

The novelist seems to be driving home the

idea that the modern civilized society is

hollow, pretentious and snobbish. The

hollowness, snobbishness, loneliness,

deprivation and disintegration are the

characteristics of what is known as

existential angst. Writing about the

existential concerns as the major thematic

concerns of Arun Joshi, Mr. Sudhin Bhose

writes,

“Multifarious thematic strands coalesce

and mere into patterns in Arun Joshi‟s

five novels. Many of the concerns

manifested by the protagonist of the

novel find resonant echoes in the later

ones. And certain motif-clusters strike

hard and deep into the mind of the

reader – the death dealing effect of an

avid city civilization with its vacuous

sophistication, where the life –giving

spiritual fountain is gone dry.

Existential groping for enduring

meaning, along with kindred emotional

turbulences such as agony, nausea,

problems of freedom and choice,

alienation from God, society and

oneself, generalized corruption, failure

of organized religion, the lopsided

properties of the urban value system,

all of which are elements common to




all the five novels with varying

emphasis. “(Sudin Ghose, 1999: 18)

Arun Joshi, son of a botanist and eminent

educationists, was born in Varanasi and

educated in India and the U.S. He came back

to India to pursue a career in the corporate

world. The Last Labyrinth won him the

Sahitya Akademi Award, India‟s highest

literary honour. Shankar Kumar writes about

the novels of Arun Joshi: “His novels take

us to the heart of darkness- one of his most

favourite metaphors is the Labyrinth -but he

is not a prophet of despair. All his novels

hold out promise of regeneration and

redemption“. (2003: 35)

The first novel of Arun Joshi is The

Foreigner published in 1968. The title

foreigner is probably derived from the status

of mind of the protagonist and his constant

shifting in living as well as in love relations.

The remark of June, the girl friend of Sindhi

Oberoi justifies how the title of the novel

may be based upon the mental dispositions

of the protagonist

“There is something strange about you,

you know, somewhat distant I‟d guess

that when people are with you they

don‟t feel like they are with human

being …… I have a feeling you would

be a foreigner everywhere for this

Sindhi justifies his predicament as

such.

“My foreignness lay within me and I

couldn‟t leave myself behind wherever

I went”. (The Foreigner, 1969: 52)

Sindhi Oberoi, the protagonist is born in

Kenya of an Indian father and English

mother. Soon after the death of his parents

in a plane crash, he is brought to India by his

uncle. He is sent abroad for higher studies.

He develops romantic relationship with two

ladies named Anna and Kathy. But soon he

finds himself disillusioned in love. Anna

deserts him for another man. Kathy leaves

him due to sacredness of marriage.

A frustrated man, Sindhi Oberoi goes to

Boston where he falls in love with June

where he meets June and proceeds to marry

her. But at the eleventh hour he changes his

mind and severs all relations with her. He

gives an acceptable logic for denying

marriage with her “One should be able to

love without wanting to possess…. One

should be able to detach oneself from the

agent of one‟s love”. For Oberoi marriage is

painful. He cannot enter into marriage

relationship with any one because the

relationship brings with it a lot of pain and

suffering. He wants to conquer pain. He

says:

“I wanted the courage to live as I

wanted; the courage to live without

desire and attachment. I wanted the

peace and perhaps a capacity to love. I

wanted all these. But above all, I

wanted to conquer pain“. (The

Foreigner: 63)

He believes in only temporary love

relationship and not a permanent bond of

marriage. He went to America simply for

enjoying short-lived relationship in love -

“What is the good of coming to America, if

one is not to play around with girls?”(The

Foreigner: 43)

Finally he dashes to Delhi where he meets

Sheela and Khemka. Sheela is another lady

who comes in the life of Sindhi. This love

affair, too, does not fructify. He decides not




to marry her. But he is pained at the

separation from June. The pain and agony

are manifest when he is found reminiscing

the time he spent with June,

“Here is where we met, here I bought a

book, there she wanted me to kiss, and

my heart would sink with the burden of

my memories and I couldn‟t help

whispering to myself, my darling! Oh

my darling. It can be very well

observed that these are not the words of

“One who should be able to detach

from the object of one‟s love” (The

Foreigner: 60).

June marries a person called Babu and not

Sindhi. But Sindhi continues with his

relationship with June. Infidelity in marriage

hurts Babu and he drinks and in an

inebriated state he drives to death. June

holds Sindhi guilty for the death of her

husband. June, too dies during child birth.

The tragic death of June bring to Sindhi a

kind of realization - “ Detachment at that

time had meant inaction. Now I had begun

to see the fallacy in it. Detachment consisted

of right action and not escape from it. The

gods had set a heavy price to teach me just

that“.(The Foreigner: 162)

Hari Mohan Prasad aptly points out

regarding the journey of Sindhi: “ From

Boston to Delhi has been a journey from

alienation to arrival, from selfishness to

sacrifice, from an anomic responsible to

himself to a member of mankind, from being

to becoming”(1985: 59). When Sheila asks

how long he plans to stay with company, he

replies:“I don`t know. As long as I`m

needed, I suppose“(192). In this context

Usha Pathania aptly remarks:

“ In his interpersonal relations, he

ultimately succeeds in imbibing the

rare and enviable quality of forgetting

his separateness and individual

identity. The journey from America to

India has been a long journey indeed.

He has reached his destination. The

most coveted goal of peace within and

around, emanating from a meaningful

existence and a sense of belongingness

has been attained. He is no more afraid

of love, of freedom, of growth of

change, of the unknown; he becomes

himself“. (1992: 60)

Finally he is seen with Sheela and Khemka

contemplating over the riddle of existence.

The Strange Case of Billy Biswas was

published in 1971. The hollowness and

snobbishness of the modern civilized society

provokes the protagonist to abandon the

civilized life and seek refuge in the simple

and primitive living of the tribes of Orissa.

Biswas belonged to a high profile society by

virtue of his father being a judge of the

Supreme Court of India. His father wants

him to acquire the best kind of education

available. Biswas is sent to America for

studying Engineering. But in America

Biswas prefers to study Anthropology and

specializes in the subject. On his return to

Delhi he gets a job in Delhi University as a

Lecturer in Anthropology. But the

metropolitan life of Delhi does not suit his

temperament. Biswas finds the life at Delhi

quite unnatural, pretentious and hypocritical.

“What got me,” Billy confides, years

after his transformation, “was the

superficiality...I don‟t think all city

societies are as shallow as ours. I am,




of course, talking mainly of the so-

called upper classes… I don‟t think I

have ever met a more pompous, a more

mixed-up lot of people.”

“Well,” answers the narrator, “you

know why they are mixed up, don‟t

you? Centuries of foreign rule, the

period of transition, economic

insecurity and so on.”

“I can understand that,” says Billy, “but

for God‟s sake they have at least got to

think about it. If they don‟t, the period

of transition, as you call it, is going to

last forever and ever.” (SCBB: 60)

Billy is married to a Bengali girl named

Meena Chaterjee. A child is born to the

couple. But the Billy is a total misfit to run a

family. He does find the life at Delhi much

different from the American materialistic

Society. He finds happiness neither in

family nor in teaching and the Delhi life. He

decides to leave his wife and the small child

and go to the deep forests of Maikal Hills.

The novelist has chosen a sensational plot

for the novel- “It is a „sensational‟ plot;

Joshi was habitually guilty of slight excesses

in that regard. It is also exciting, wise,

beautifully constructed, and one of the best

English novels written anywhere in the

world.” (The Hindu, 2 March 2013, ed. N.

Ravi)

Billy moves to the Maikal Hills near

Bhuwaneshwar and confines himself in the

tribal areas. He is compelled by a kind of

primitive force to abandon the urban and

civilized life “a great force, urkraft, a… a

primitive force” (SCBB 18[1]). He falls in

love with Bilasia, a tribal girl. The jungle

and Bilasia become object of his new world.

“By becoming a tribal himself he comes to

know that it is only in this world he can

understand the ultimate motive of life”

(Bhatnagar, 2000, p. 167)

The Last Labyrinth published in 1981 won

Sahitya Academy Award for the novelist.

Som Bhaskar, the protagonist, finally learns

that the real joy of life can be found in

money and mistress. Son of a prosperous

industrialist, Som wants to surpass others in

business. He has a lust for Anuradha, the

mistress of another industrialist Aftab Rai.

Som‟s wife Geeta fails to comfort his

yearning for love and lust.

The conflicts present in the mind of Som is a

reflection of conflict between two cultures

which he has inherited from his parents.

Born of a religious mother and scientist cum

spiritual father, Som grows into a confused

person. He does not actually know what he

wants - “If only one knew what one wanted.

Or, maybe, to know was what I wanted. To

know. Just that. No more. No less. This,

then, was a labyrinth, too, this going forward

and backward and sideways of the mind”

(Last Labyrinth 53). Critics are of the

opinion that indecisive nature is inherent in

human beings. S. Radhakrishnan says “in

human nature itself there is a polarity, there

is a dichotomy” (Towards a New World

141).

His lust for Anuradha reflects his unstable

mental disposition. Joshi notices human

existence in this bi-polarity:

“There are the wanters of this world

and there are the givers. And, often, the

wanters, I know, don‟t recognise the

givers, or vice-versa. And most of the

times, the wanters don‟t even know




that they are the wanters or the givers.

And if they know, they are too shy to

admit. Or, too proud. And so they

wander on the streets of the world on

opposite pavements, burning in their

anger, to take or to give, and do not lift

their gaze and, finally, fall in the dust

of the road. So it goes”. (34).

To conclude, the novels of Arun Joshi guide

us to pursue a rightful path and live

purposefully in this world. It is very

essential that we understand the life in right

perspective. Life of human being is very

short and once a wrong path is undertaken, it

becomes very difficult to change it. One has

to pay the price for the wrongs done in life.

One is reminded of Osho here that fleeing

from responsibility is not a solution to the

problem. The real solution is awakening to

what we have to do and where we are to go.

References:

1. Ghosh, Sudin and Raja Rao, A Critical Study of the Novels of Arun Joshi,

Atlanta Publishers and Distributors, New Delhi, 1999.

2. Shankar Kumar, The Novels of Arun Joshi-A Critical Study (New Delhi: Atlantic

Publishers and Distributors,2003),

3. Joshi, Arun, The Foreigner, Hind Pocket Books, New Delhi, 1968

4. Prasad, Hari Mohan, Arun Joshi, Arnold Heinemann, 1985

5. Arun Joshi, The Foreigner, p.192.

6. Pathania, Usha, “Having and Being: A Study of The Foreigner”, Dhawan, (ed.)

The Novels of Arun Joshi, Prestige Books, New Delhi, 1992

7. Joshi, Arun, The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, Hind Pocket Books, New

Delhi, 1971

8. Urmi, „Quest for Self in Arun Joshi‟s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas‟

Indian Writing in English ed. M.K. Bhatnagar, Vol. 07, Atlanta Publishing

House, 2000

9. Joshi, Arun, The Last Labyrinth, Orient Paperbacks, New Delhi, 1974

10. Radhakrishnan. S. Towards a New World. New Delhi: Orient Paperbacks,

1980.

Documents

Research Chroniclerresearch-chronicler.com/reschro/pdf/v4i1/4111.pdf · 11 Dr. Anjan Kumar Existential Angst in the Novels of Arun Joshi 78 12 Dr Meenu Dudeja Comparison of the Three